Monday, November 02, 2009

SHNS: Casinos "not a done deal."

From Friday's State House News Weekly Roundup ("The Citizen Advisers"), from Jim O'Sullivan. I'm just getting this now, otherwise I'd have posted it sooner.

Last time, December 2007, Gov. Deval Patrick walked into the capitol auditorium armed to the teeth with casino enthusiasm, and lots of people in red T-shirts stood up and clapped.

The casino hearing this time around, the governor was down the Pike a ways, talking about chopping $352 million from this fiscal year's budget, maybe laying off 2,000 state workers.

Casinos are not a done deal, one sensed Thursday....

Recall that the vote in April 2008 was 108-46, against, in the House. Recall that the speaker was a powerful fellow named Sal DiMasi, since deposed. And now consider that Patrick has cooled markedly on the casino front - seemingly, from economic development chief Gregory Bialecki's testimony on behalf of the administration, close to ambivalence. Casinos are not a done deal.

There is a marked difference in how the media is starting to treat news about casinos. The inevitability meme is gone; they're treating the the Barrows of the world with the criticism they deserve. The same stuff that sold last year and the year before just isn't passing the sniff test anymore. Whether people support or oppose casinos, this is a good thing: any major changes made to a state must be looked at with a great deal of skepticism, because those changes have to be for the better. Whenever there's a fair and open debate, casinos lose. I'm getting more and more confident they will this time, too.

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